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Google PlayThe Oscar-winning editor of the original Star Wars franchise had a few choice words for J.J. Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, and the series’s latest sequel trilogy.
“It seems to me that Kathy Kennedy and J.J. Abrams don’t have a clue about Star Wars,” Marcia Lucas said in an interview for J.W. Rinzler’s book Howard Kazanjian: A Producer’s Life, which examines the legendary producer’s life and legacy, including his time on Star Wars. “They don’t get it. And J.J. Abrams is writing these stories — when I saw that movie where they kill Han Solo, I was furious. I was furious when they killed Han Solo. Absolutely, positively there was no rhyme or reason to it. I thought, ‘You don’t get the Jedi story. You don’t get the magic of ‘Star Wars.’ You’re getting rid of Han Solo?’”
Lucas won an Oscar in 1977 for her editing work on the original Star Wars and was married to creator George Lucas from 1969 to 1983. Needless to say, she didn’t spare any words in the interview.
She prefaced her scathing remarks by saying that she “always liked” Kathleen Kennedy, who is the current president of LucasFilms.
“She was full of beans. She was really smart and really bright. Really wonderful woman. And I liked her husband, Frank. I liked them a lot.”
Still, those words of compassion didn’t stop Lucas from ripping the latest trilogy to shreds. “They have Luke disintegrate. They killed Han Solo. They killed Luke Skywalker. And they don’t have Princess Leia anymore. And they’re spitting out movies every year,” she said. “They think it’s important to appeal to a woman’s audience, so now their main character is this female, who’s supposed to have Jedi powers, but we don’t know how she got Jedi powers, or who she is. It sucks. The storylines are terrible. Just terrible. Awful. You can quote me — ‘J.J. Abrams, Kathy Kennedy — talk to me.”
Marcia Lucas isn’t the only one that thought the latest trilogy could have been better. Back in May, J.J. Abrams himself said that he believed the sequel trilogy could have benefited from more planning. “I feel like what I’ve learned as a lesson a few times now, and it’s something that especially in this pandemic year working with writers [has become clear], the lesson is that you have to plan things as best you can, and you always need to be able to respond to the unexpected,” he told Collider. “And the unexpected can come in all sorts of forms, and I do think that there’s nothing more important than knowing where you’re going.”
